Rejecting and withdrawing candidates

How to reject and withdraw candidates one at a time or in bulk, what the candidate is sent, and how to reverse a rejection.

A candidate leaves the active pipeline in one of two ways. Rejecting says the organisation is not taking them forward. Withdrawing records that the candidate is no longer in the running, whether they asked to be taken out or you are closing the application for them. This article covers both, the emails that go with them, and how to undo a rejection.

Who can reject, withdraw and reactivate

The three actions follow the same rule. You can use them on a job if you are a System Admin or HR user, or if you are on that job's team as its Recruiter or a Hiring Manager. An Interviewer on the job cannot, a Member with no role on the job cannot, and Agency users cannot.

The buttons are shown to anyone who can open the candidate, so you can click one and still be refused. The message is You do not have permission to reject applications for this job (or withdraw, or reactivate). This rule is separate from the one that controls moving candidates between stages, so the setting that lets hiring managers and interviewers move candidates does not affect it.

Reject one candidate

Open the job and go to the Pipeline tab.
Click the candidate's name to open the review window, then select Reject. In Kanban view you can also drag the card onto the Rejected column.
Under Rejection Reason, choose one of: Not Qualified, Experience Mismatch, Overqualified, Underqualified, Location, Salary Expectations, Culture Fit, Incomplete Application or Other. A reason is required.
Add text in Additional Details if you want to. It is optional, except when the reason is Other, where you must fill it in.
Select Reject.

You will see "Application rejected successfully". The reason is kept on the application and shown as a badge on the candidate's card, for example "not qualified", or "other: relocating abroad" when you added text. The reason is for your team. It is not sent to the candidate.

A line under the dialog title tells you what will happen with the rejection email, based on the timing set on the job. It appears before you confirm, so read it if you are unsure.

Reject several candidates

On the Pipeline tab, tick the boxes beside the candidates and select Reject Selected in the bar that appears. The dialog is titled "Reject N Applications". You choose one reason, and it is applied to everyone selected. Recruit handles up to 100 at a time.

The result is reported as "N applications rejected successfully", or "N rejected, M failed" when some were refused. The message does not name the ones that failed. The usual cause is that you do not have permission on one of the jobs involved. Open the failed candidate and reject them on their own to see the exact message.

On the Candidates page you can select candidates and use Reject in the bulk action bar. This works by candidate, not by application: every active application each selected candidate has, on any job, is rejected, and each job uses its own rejection email timing. A candidate with no active application is reported as failed. A candidate is also counted as failed if any one of their applications could not be rejected, even though the others were.

The rejection email

Rejecting a candidate can send them an email. Whether it does, when, and which wording is used depends on three things.

Timing. On the job's Settings tab, under Rejection Email Settings, Email Delay Mode is one of No Email, Send Immediately (the default), Delay 24 Hours, Delay 48 Hours or Delay 1 Week. With a delay, the email is queued and goes out that long after the rejection.
Template. Recruit uses the first one it finds: the rejection template set on the stage the candidate was rejected from, then the template chosen on the job, then, if the job has none chosen, the most recently created Rejection template in your organisation.
An email address. A candidate with no email address is not emailed.

Where these settings are found, who can change them, and how to cancel a delayed email in Settings > Scheduled Emails are covered in Stage automations and rejection emails. Emails that are sent, queued, cancelled or failed all show on the candidate's Communications tab.

Nothing is sent when the job is set to No Email, when there is no email address, when no Rejection template exists, or when the job's chosen template has been deleted. A delayed email is dropped if the candidate has been reactivated by the time it is due. If the candidate has unsubscribed from emails or their address has been suppressed, the email fails and the Communications tab shows the reason. Candidates submitted by an agency receive the rejection email like anyone else.

Withdraw a candidate

Use this when the application should end but is not a rejection: the candidate has told you they are no longer interested, for example.

Open the candidate in the review window and select Withdraw. In Kanban view you can drag the card onto the Withdrawn column. For several candidates, tick them and select Withdraw Selected, or use Withdraw in the Candidates page bulk bar.
Enter a Reason (optional) if you want one recorded.
Choose a Withdrawal email. The default is No email. The list holds your templates in the Candidate Withdrawal category.
Select Withdraw.

You will see "Application withdrawn successfully". Unlike rejection, a withdrawal email has no delay setting and no job default. It is sent straight away only if you pick a template, and one choice applies to everyone in a bulk withdrawal. It is delivered even to a candidate who has unsubscribed from other emails.

Create the template in Settings > Communication Templates with the Candidate Withdrawal category. The fields Recruit fills in are the candidate's name, email and phone, the job title, location, reference, region, postcode and category, the company name and contact number, (you) and . There is no recruiter name field in this category.

The card moves to the Withdrawn column and carries a Withdrawn badge.

When a candidate withdraws themselves

Candidates can withdraw from the Manage Your Application page, reached from the manage link in their application emails. They select Withdraw My Application and confirm with Yes, Withdraw. The page warns them that this cannot be undone. Once an application is withdrawn, rejected or hired, the page shows "This action is no longer available for your application".

Asking for their data on a single application to be deleted from the same page also withdraws that application.

The application moves to the Withdrawn column. The job's hiring managers are emailed to say the candidate withdrew, or the hiring lead if the job has no hiring managers. Each person can turn this off with Application withdrawn under Settings > Notifications. No withdrawal email goes to the candidate in this case.

Reactivate a rejected candidate

On the Pipeline tab, open the candidate from the Rejected column.
Select Reactivate.

There is no dialog. You will see "{name} has been reactivated". The candidate returns to the stage they were rejected from, because rejecting never moved them. No email is sent, and their stage entry email is not sent again. A rejection email that has already gone cannot be recalled. One that is still waiting on its delay will not be sent.

Reactivate is only offered for rejected applications. If you try it on any other status you get "Only rejected applications can be reactivated". A withdrawn application has no Reactivate option.

What changes in the pipeline and reports

The candidate leaves their stage column and the stage's count drops by one. They appear in the Rejected or Withdrawn column (a group of the same name in List view), and the Rejected card shows the reason.
Reactivating puts them back in their old stage and the count goes up again.
Reminders still queued for the candidate stop, including application form, reference form, interview booking and video interview reminders.
The Pipeline report counts rejected applications under Total Rejected. Its per-stage figures include active applications only, so rejected and withdrawn candidates drop out of them.

Problems you might hit

Please select a reason appears if you confirm a rejection without choosing one. Please provide a reason appears when the reason is Other and Additional Details is empty.
Failed to reject application or Failed to withdraw application shows with the cause underneath. The permission message above is the most common.
If the candidate says they got no rejection email, check the job's Rejection Email Settings, then the candidate's Communications tab, and confirm the organisation has a Rejection template.
If you rejected the wrong candidate, reactivate them straight away. If the email was set to send immediately it has already gone.